Category Archives: Bitcoin

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Theres a new paradigm unfolding among the large public bitcoin miners: They dont want to sell their bitcoin, and they also want to acquire more. As a result, they are finding creative ways to raise capital or leverage their bitcoin holdings to help cover operating costs rather than having to sell for fiat.

One strategy is to loan out a portion of their bitcoin holdings, thus earning fiat yield that can directly go towards paying their operating expenses. Hut 8 Mining has been doing this, loaning out 2,000 BTC (nearly 40% of their BTC holdings) to earn a 4% interest rate starting in January. That interest rate has since come down to 2.00% to 2.25% as of its latest Q3 financial reporting. At todays price, 2,000 BTC is worth around $130 million in total value earning an annualized $2.6 million at the lower 2% interest rate. An average bitcoin price for the entire year of $46,792 would generate $1.8 million.

Generating revenue from loaned bitcoin to cover costs allows public miners to better execute on their increased HODL strategies. The Hut 8 bitcoin treasury is now 5,503 BTC which is already up 68% since March of this year. Its the second-largest public miner treasury behind Marathon. Marathon and Riot, major public miners that report November production updates, both increased their bitcoin treasuries over the last month.

Hut 8 deploys 1,000 BTC with Genesis Global Capital and 1,000 BTC with Galaxy Digital. That bitcoin is then used mostly for institutional trading arbitrage opportunities. Interest rates for bitcoin yield have been pushed further down this year as the cash and carry basis trade narrowed and GBTC shares started to trade at a discount instead of a premium.

A decrease in higher-yield opportunities drives lower market demand for bitcoin loans which then drives lower interest rates. Too much bitcoin supply is chasing yields while there is less demand for bitcoin borrowing. However, the futures ETF interest may help raise and sustain BTC market interest rates with a widening cash and carry spread. Right now that contango trade, longing spot and selling futures, is sustaining around 14% yield which is up from single digits in Q3.

Genesis Global Capital noted in its latest reporting that although bitcoin loans have increased, the weighting of their loan book in Q3 favored more ether and USDC loans as investors are pushed further along the risk curve in the search for a higher yield. This is a key market to watch into Q4 as increased interest rates for bitcoin lending will supply miners with yet another financial vehicle to continue their strategies to acquire more bitcoin.

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Public Bitcoin Miners Are Increasing Their BTC Treasuries - Bitcoin Magazine

A representation of the virtual cryptocurrency Bitcoin is seen in this picture illustration taken October 19, 2021. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo/File Photo

NEW YORK, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Bitcoin went through a major upgrade on Sunday that enables its blockchain to execute more complex transactions, potentially widening the virtual currency's use cases and making it a little more competitive with Ethereum for processing smart contracts.

Smart contracts are self-executing transactions whose results depend on pre-programmed inputs.

The enhancement, called Taproot, is the most significant change to the bitcoin protocol since the SegWit (Segregated Witness) block capacity change in 2017. SegWit effectively increased the amount of transactions that could fit into a block by pulling data on signatures from bitcoin transactions.

Noelle Acheson, head of market insights at Genesis, a digital currency prime broker, said bitcoin's potential applications have become broader with Taproot.

"More flexible transaction types and lower costs are likely to support more development of DeFi (decentralized finance) and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) on bitcoin, and could set the stage for a wave of technological progress on the original crypto network," she added.

The run-up to Taproot's activation has spurred, in part, a rally in bitcoin, pushing it to an all-time high of $69,000 on November 10. Over the last two months, bitcoin has surged about 47%.

WHAT IS TAPROOT?

The Taproot upgrade consists of three separate upgrade proposals. However, at its core, the upgrade introduces a new digital signature scheme called "Schnorr" that will help bitcoin transactions become more efficient and more private. Schnorr can also be leveraged to let bitcoin users execute more complex smart contracts.

WHEN WAS TAPROOT OFFICIALLY ACTIVATED?

Taproot was officially activated on Sunday on block 709,632. Blockchains settle transactions in batches or blocks. Each block can contain only a certain number of transactions.

Discussions on this particular upgrade began as early as 2016, market participants said. The Taproot upgrade has been included in the bitcoin software since September.

WHAT IS ITS IMPACT ON BITCOIN?

The biggest impact would be the bitcoin network's ability to process more smart contracts, similar to what Ethereum does.

Katherine Dowling, general counsel & chief compliance officer at digital asset investment firm Bitwise, said bitcoin has historically been much more limited in processing smart contracts compared with Ethereum.

"But, while bitcoin likely won't ever be as flexible as Ethereum from a smart-contract standpoint, with Taproot that gap will now narrow. And that means we'll likely see an increase in day-to-day applications for bitcoin," she added.

WHAT ARE THE OTHER ENHANCEMENTS?

Taproot increases privacy by obscuring what type of transaction is being executed. The Schnorr signatures can make more complex transactions on the bitcoin protocol, such as those from wallets that require multiple signatures, look like just any other transaction. This makes transactions more private and more secure.

Bitcoin transactions will also become more data-efficient, optimizing block capacity and leading to lower transaction fees, said Genesis' Acheson.

WHAT DOES TAPROOT MEAN FOR INVESTORS?

Bitwise's Dowling said these large scale upgrades have paved the way for the next phase of innovation in the bitcoin network. She noted that the last major upgrade in 2017 helped launch the Lightning Network, which facilitated much faster and cheaper bitcoin payments than before.

She expects Taproot to lead to similar wave of innovation in bitcoin centered around smart contracts.

Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Alden Bentley and Chizu Nomiyama

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Explainer: Bitcoin goes through major upgrade. Here is what it means - Reuters

Selecting a timeframe for technical analysis is always a tricky topic, but usually, the longer the trend, the higher the odds it shall prevail. For example, those analyzing the 3-day Bitcoin (BTC) chart will unarguably identify an ascending channel pattern that initiated in late June.

Bears will also always find ways to justify their views despite the fact that Bitcoin has hit new all-time highs following the United States consumer price surge to 6.2%, which is the biggest inflation surge in 30 years.

However, data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode shows that long-term investors have stopped net accumulating and are now diversifying into altcoins. According to analyst Willian Clemente, the recent net selling from that class of investors was the first in 6 months, signaling a sell into strength move.

It is worth highlighting that the Bitcoin network was upgraded on Nov. 14 to improve the scripting and privacy capabilities. From a trading perspective, this creates a potential sell the news event as the improvement was largely expected by the community.

To understand how bullish or bearish professional traders are leaning, one should analyze the futures basis rate. This indicator is frequently referred to as the futures premium and it measures the difference between longer-term futures contracts and the current spot market levels.

A 5% to 15% annualized premium is expected in healthy markets which is a situation known as contango. This price difference is caused by sellers demanding more money to withhold settlement longer.

Notice the spike to 20% on Nov. 9, as Bitcoin accumulated 14% gains in 3 days. This brief period of excessive optimism retracted as BTC corrected 9% after the $69,100 all-time high on Nov. 10.

Currently, the basis indicator stands at a healthy 12%, signaling confidence from these traders.

To exclude externalities specific to the futures instrument, one should also analyze options markets.

The 25% delta skew compares similar call (buy) and put (sell) options. The metric will turn positive when fear is prevalent because the protective put options premium is higher than similar risk call options.

The opposite holds when greed is the prevalent mood, causing the 25% delta skew indicator to shift to the negative area.

A skew indicator between -8% (greed) and +8% (fear) is considered neutral. Sept. 29 was the last time that indicator moved outside this range, reaching +10%. Curiously, that same day marked the end of a 23-day bear movement that took Bitcoin from $52,700 on Sept. 6 to $41,000.

As for the current neutral 25% delta skew, it might be interpreted as a glass half full because pro traders are somehow unfazed by the 95% gains year-to-date.

Data shows there is room for additional leverage from Bitcoin buyers, which ideally would see the price continue to trade within the ascending channel that was initiated in late June.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Originally posted here:
Bitcoin has stalled, but heres why pro traders still expect $80K by January - Cointelegraph

Anthony ScaramucciHollywood To You/Star Max

SkyBridge Capital's Anthony Scaramucci said in a recent interview that he believes bitcoin will eventually overtake gold, both in terms of the size of the overall market, in addition to bullion's role as an inflation hedge.

"The Mooch" pointed to the ease with which anyone can move and store bitcoin, relative to gold, which is costly to hold as inventory and to move physically from one place to another.

"It will eventually eclipse gold," he told CNBC in an interview on Friday.

Scaramucci is one of a number of high profile crypto-friendly investors that believes bitcoin will outpace gold, along with the likes of MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor and Cathie Wood, the chief executive of disruptive technology investment house Ark Invest.

He said the fact that 65% of gold had already been mined compared with 89% of bitcoin was another factor in the bullish argument for bitcoin.

JPMorgan recently repeated its prediction that bitcoin could hit $146,000 and is behaving more like digital gold now in the face of rising US inflation. Bitcoin hit new highs last week, having gained 12% in the space of a month, according to Coinbase data.

Inflation in the US is currently high and is not expected to go down until the second half of 2022. Factors propelling inflation have been the pandemic and monetary policy, Scaramucci said.

"I'm not going to be surprised if bitcoin goes up at an exponential rate and gold goes up at a linear one," Scaramucci said, talking about market capitalization.

Gold's market cap is almost $12 trillion while the value of the bitcoin market is just over $1.2 trillion.

"I think it's probably going to be ten times better than gold over a long period of time," Scaramucci said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Anthony Scaramucci says bitcoin will go up at an "exponential" rate and will eventually eclipse gold as an inflation hedge - Yahoo Tech

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, is now the 15th wealthiest person in the world after the cryptocurrencys recent price rally.

Nakamotos net worth is estimated to be up to $73 billion, with crypto holdings in the region of 750,000 to 1.1 million BTC. This ranks them above Walmart heirs Jim and Rob Walton, as well as Mexican entrepreneur Carlos Slim.

Follow our live coverage of the crypto market

The price of bitcoin hit a new all-time high earlier this month above $68,000 following an increase of more than 300 per cent over the last year. One prominent prediction model has forecast it could rise above $100,000 before the end of the year, which would see Nakamoto ascend to the top 10 of the worlds wealthiest, with a net worth on a par with investor Warren Buffett.

Nakamoto described their vision for a peer-to-peer digital currency in a white paper in 2008, before launching bitcoin a few months later in January 2009. After collaborating with other developers on the project for nearly two years, Nakamoto withdrew and has not been active online for over a decade.

Several bitcoin wallets that are believed to belong to Nakamoto also remain untouched, with their contents rising in value by more than 10 million per cent since they were last used.

The mystery surrounding Nakamotos true identity remains unresolved, though circumstantial evidence points to several potential candidates.

Early crypto pioneer Hal Finney was the first person to ever receive bitcoin through an online transaction and numerous attempts were made to link his online activity to Nakamotos. He denied being the cryptocurrencys creator and refused to speculate on who it might be until his death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in August 2014.

A high-profile Newsweek cover story in March 2014 claimed to have unmasked the inventor of bitcoin, claiming that Japanese-American computer scientist Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto was behind it. The article was widely debunked following its publication.

That same year, a book by financial author Dominic Frisby singled out Nick Szabo as bitcoins creator, pointing to his writing style and the fact he designed a pre-curser to bitcoins electronic cash system. Mr Szabo denied the claims, tweeting: Not Satoshi, but thank you.

In 2015, Australian programmer Craig Wright claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto but was broadly greeted with scepticism from senior figures within the crypto industry. A few days after proclaiming himself the inventor of bitcoin, Mr Wright retracted his claim and posted an apology to his website.

I believed that I could put the years of anonymity and hiding behind me, he wrote. But, as the events of this week unfolded and I prepared to publish the proof of access to the earliest keys, I broke. I do not have the courage. I cannot.

Mr Wright has since been sued by the estate of deceased David Keiman, whose family claim worked with Mr Wright and jointly used the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to publish bitcoins white paper.

Continue reading here:
Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto now 15th richest person in the world - The Independent

As the price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) soars to new heights, inflation is also increasing at record rates.

Bitcoin reached an all-time high of more than $68,000 per token recently, up nearly 300% over the past year. Meanwhile, in October the consumer price index (CPI) rose by 6.2% from one year ago, its highest in more than 30 years.

Some experts believe Bitcoin's recent rally is related to the increase in inflation, as Bitcoin has often been referred to as "digital gold" because of its potential to be an inflation hedge. But can the cryptocurrency really be an effective hedge against inflation? It depends.

Image source: Getty Images.

One of Bitcoin's most significant advantages over other cryptocurrencies -- and even fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar -- is that it's said to hedge against inflation over time.

Unlike other currencies, there is a limited supply of Bitcoin tokens. There will only ever be 21 million tokens in circulation, and according to current estimates, we should reach that cap around the year 2140. Because there's a finite supply of tokens, that should, theoretically, help Bitcoin retain its value over time.

Traditionally, gold has been considered the strongest inflation hedge. The supply of gold remains relatively steady over time, and gold tends to have an inverse relation with inflation -- as inflation increases and the U.S. dollar loses buying power, the value of gold tends to increase.

However, as inflation has surged over the past year, gold has underperformed. While everything from housing prices to gasoline to energy costs have soared, the price of gold has decreased over the past 12 months.

Gold Price in US Dollars data by YCharts

Bitcoin, though, has seen its price continue increasing as inflation climbs higher and higher. It appears, then, that Bitcoin might be a more effective inflation hedge than gold. That said, there are other factors to consider that could affect Bitcoin's long-term inflation hedge potential.

Although Bitcoin has had a phenomenal year and has managed to hedge against inflation in recent months, it's too soon to say how it will fare over decades.

Bitcoin has only existed since 2009, while gold has been valuable for centuries. With such a short track record, it's tough to tell whether Bitcoin will have the same staying power as gold.

In addition, while gold is widely accepted as an inflation hedge, many people are still skeptical about Bitcoin in general. Not everyone believes in its potential, and it's still a speculative investment at this point. If the general public is unwilling to accept Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency in general), it likely won't survive over the long term.

Bitcoin is also extremely volatile, which could affect its potential as an inflation hedge. There are many factors besides inflation that can impact the price of Bitcoin, and there may be several forces at play when it comes to its recent price increase.

In short, nobody knows for certain how Bitcoin will perform as an inflation hedge over time. While it does seem promising right now, only time will tell whether it continues performing well over the long run.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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Is Bitcoin a Good Inflation Hedge? - Motley Fool

On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected the proposal by VanEck for a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would have held the actual cryptocurrency rather than just Bitcoin futures. Submitted in March, the application sought to buy Bitcoin directly on the "spot" market and hold it in an ETF that investors could then buy into. For clarity, a futures-based ETF invests in indirect contracts to buy or sell an asset at a set date in the future.

While the SEC allowed two Bitcoin futures-based ETFs to begin trading last month, it would not authorize an ETF containing actual Bitcoin, citing in its 51-page report its frequent worries of possible manipulation and fraud, etc within the crypto market. Bitcoin dipped to around $62,000 when the SEC announcement came down, but it has rebounded to more than $64,000 as of this writing.

While many investors like the diversity of an ETF, with its trading flexibility of an equity, it's not a great way to invest in Bitcoin or any type of cryptocurrency for that matter. Here are some reasons why:

Ultimately, there are much better ways to dip your toes into crypto with easy-to-use, consumer-friendly choices such as PayPal or Coinbase. The irony of the SEC's decision to reject the Bitcoin spot ETF is completely consistent and aligned with Bitcoin's ethos and founding principles. Bitcoin was created to remove expense ratios, commissions, hidden fees, and in-betweeners from financial transactions -- not inject them into the crypto purchasing process. So a hearty "thank you" in response to the SEC's most recent ETF thumbs down.

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Why a Bitcoin ETF Might Be the Worst Way to Enter Crypto - Motley Fool

A hedge-fund manager who made winning bets on subprime loans back in 2007 isnt too worried about a repeat of that crisis.

I dont believe were in a bubble today, as far as ratios are concerned and leverage in the system is a concern, Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, said in a weekend interview with the Investors Podcast Network.

Thats because the U.S. has 40% more foreign cash in the system from two years or even 18 months ago, he said. Im a monetarist at heart. I believe, if you increase the money supply by 40%, youre going to have a 40% depreciation in purchasing power, roughly thereabouts, he said.

And while the amount of appreciation in real estate has been unprecedented over the past two years, in order for a bubble to form, its going to have to get to many multiples of peoples income tough with more jobs than people right now.

In ourcall of the day, Bass said he thinks investors should be sticking cash in one crucial place. I think assets, including real estate, are going to continue to move much higher over the next decade because I think the central banks cant raise rates more than 100 basis points, he said.

But as individuals see the value of their dollar depreciate and hes especially worried about hydrocarbons and food inflation in the next year forget bitcoin as the perfect substitute or a great substitute for gold and/or an inflation protector.

Bass said from here on out, its going to be really difficult to make money on bitcoin due to intense regulation he sees coming in 2022 from the U.S. government, followingChinas crackdowns this year.

I think that the blockchain, I think that NFTs [nonfungible tokens], those things are all very much here to stay. Private crypto, I put a question mark by over the long run. Id be careful with that now, he said.

But those who are cashing out are likely buying real estate and land over gold. I think about the tangible benefits and both physical and mental benefits of being outside. I think thats likely to move a lot faster than gold does. Id much rather own that kind of land, he said.

His sweet spot is rural land, where Bass noted you can put a judicious amount of leverage on itand stay way ahead of this insidious degradation of your savings. Hes so convinced of the assets worth that he set up a private-equity firm a couple of months ago Conservation Equity Management to buy land and mitigate environmental impacts from big industrial and commercial land users.

He sees prices of land moving much higher in pro-business and low tax states such as Florida, Texas and Tennessee.

Bass ended the interview with a warning on China, of which he has been a longtime critic. Noting increasing rhetoric, he sees that country invading Taiwan as soon as mid next year. That would put the U.S., its military and everyone else who depends on Taiwan Semiconductors wafer fab in big trouble, especially as the companys semiconductor fab under way in Arizona is still years from completion, he noted.

And dont even think of going near China real estate, as he sees all those highly leveraged developers such as Evergrande 3333, +4.03% getting wiped out, leaving Chinese banks with holes in their balance sheets. He also warned against U.S. investor FOMO [fear of missing out] over Chinese stocks, noting that even if Alibaba BABA, -0.16% looks cheap, its financials are a mystery.

That packed interview can be foundhere.

Read: Resist buying U.S. stocks and Treasurys, Morgan Stanley advises. Heres what its strategists recommend buying instead.

Tyson Foods TSN, +3.55% delivered a beat on profit and sales and launched a $1 billion savings program. And its a big week for retailers, with Walmart WMT, -0.58%, Target TGT, +1.66% and Home Depot HD, -0.42% all on tap.

The Empire State manufacturing index is ahead, but the weeks big data will be retail sales, due Tuesday.

Swedish EV maker Polestar, due to go public via a merger with a SPAC Gores Guggenheim GGPI, +15.38% says its aiming for sales of 290,000 by end 2025.

Austria is beginning a 10-day lockdown of people unvaccinated against COVID-19 as Europe battles a COVID wave. Surgeon General Dr.Vivek Murthywarned of an uptick in cases in the U.S. as cold weather arrives.

The flagship fund ARKK, -0.81% of Cathie Woods ARK Invest has sold most of its remaining stake in online real-estate firm Zillow Z, -0.64%.

American Tower AMT, -4.26% is buying data-center real-estate investment trust CoreSite COR, +3.55% in a $170-per share deal.

President Joe Biden will hold a virtual meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday.

Meanwhile, Biden reportedly could make his Fed chair pick as soon as this week, renominating Jerome Powell or choosing Fed Gov. Lael Brainard instead.

Stocks DJIA, -0.04% SPX, -0.00% COMP, -0.04% are higher to start the week, but other assets, such as oil CL00, +0.66% and gold GC00, +0.03% are down. Bitcoin BTCUSD, -3.74% is cresting above $25,000.

Woman calls police after aggressive possum holds her hostage.

Storms causes swarm of deadly scorpions in southern Egypt, killing three people and injuring hundreds.

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Kyle Bass says the big money has been made in bitcoin. This is where investors need to put cash next. - MarketWatch

It is in decentralization that nature dwells. In centralization, we have seen only masks; we have seen only rogues who deceive fools; charlatans who come to governments to get some money, who send men to war while they go in to plunder their refrigerators with impunity, who plunge them into poverty through taxes, credits and debts, and who force them to pay their bills in exchange for allowing them to continue walking the Earth. That is, after all, centralization: A lot of smoke and lies mixed in the same stove, whose flame is kept burning by the politician who thinks that men are not worthy to govern themselves. In his opinion, that happiness is reserved for small tribes that hide among jungles and mountains, like animals that hide from civilized societies, but that in the long run are discovered, colonized and exterminated by them.

If it is unusual for a politician to exercise power without corruption, it is even more unusual to exercise power without centralization, especially if there is a type of decentralization such as Bitcoin, which bases its transparent and immutable government on mathematics and which, as such, is already mature and strong enough to be ashamed of depending on a government that is not interested in the progress of mankind. Let us remember, of course, that good inventions were never made with the prior authorization of any government, starting with the alphabet, which had to be the first tacit agreement or the first social contract between peoples, just before merchants invented money to represent the value of food, housing or sex. The great inventions were always decentralized, and in order to function they never needed the permission of any human committee, as did the most nefarious ones, such as religion, politics and armed armies, which were born precisely to satisfy the desire for domination of centralized powers. It is hard to understand, for this very reason, how it is that the people today believe they have any kind of voice, when it is clear that they have long since fallen into the hands of the tyranny of centralization, and allow a government from which they are completely excluded to do whatever it wants with their work and their money, to watch over them as it wants, where it wants and as it prefers, and to tell them without any shame whatsoever:

"He who is a skillful guardian of a thing is also skillful in stealing it." Plato, Republic I, 334b

The only Heracles against the economic and governmental monsters of this world is Bitcoin, with all its "decentralized" weapons, which do not benefit any bee without first benefiting the swarm, and which value human privacy to such an extent that anyone can put on the helmet of Hades. The blockchain, as a science related to privacy, does not have, naturally, total transparency; if so, not only its security would be threatened but also its immutability, because it would allow exactly the same thing that gave rise to its birth: excessive government surveillance, an abusive interference in individual freedoms justified in the defense of collective freedoms, more inequality, much more corruption, and everything that is in direct contradiction with the philosophy of Bitcoin.

Secrecy, at least in the Bitcoin blockchain, is not a manifest duty, but one of its main rights, since in it the word privacy means the same as freedom, and the collective benefit is not achieved at the expense of sacrificing any individual inclination. The primary purpose of Bitcoin, like that of any innovation, is to leave beings in the world freer than we were in it, so that whoever wants to reach a certain goal also has the means to obtain it, depending as little as possible on others, spending his days devoted to the art of which he believes himself capable and, above all, without being forced to surrender his freedom in exchange for a simple illusion of legality.

"Truly, nature leaves us free and liberated, but we ourselves bind ourselves, we constrict ourselves, we enclose ourselves within walls, we reduce ourselves in the small and petty." Plutarch, Moralia, 601c

Freedom, unfortunately, is hated in excessively centralized epochs to such an extent that its entire psychology seems oriented to belittle and slander it, causing man to be so bad as free today, that even free he feels and acts in the world as a slave. Free, in all cases, means not moved or forced, without any feeling of constraint: the mere fact of being able to make one's own life an experiment, without any authorization from any man, institution or government. Perhaps all men would be free and equal if they had no needs, but as long as misery subordinates some human beings to others, as long as they act out of strict necessity rather than by virtue of their freedom, as long as few of them belong to themselves, and others must be counted among their belongings, so long, we say, will dependence and inequality exist, and slavery will be a very real misfortune.

And yes, it is true, we know that, in comparison with other ages, the man of today enjoys much more freedom, and that the slave who at night kissed the same hand that in the daytime whipped his back is now a thing of the past; but still we are far from believing, as those addicted to the idea of progress believe, that the man of these times is entirely free by birth, an impartial child of the universe, who goes out to sea without a single wave pushing him back to the harbor. A man who centers his financial freedom in having more and more debts and does not realize that the worst state of affairs is that of one who has nothing that really belongs to him cannot be free at all, for he contemplates the ideal of freedom in its simplest and most caricatured form. Such a man judges freedom not by what he is able to do, but by what he is able to endure, even in the midst of the worst need, and believes that the fact that he has no master is enough to affirm that he does not live as a slave. Such a man makes it his destiny to serve all his life, provided he is allowed to say that he loves his freedom with idolatry: For he can say that because he is free he would serve God, if the devil himself commanded him to do so; but, though he dislikes the yoke, and though he says he hates it, he knows very well that he must bear it.

"However much your name may weigh you down, you are a slave, and not to one man; rather, to many you will be inexorably enslaved, and, bowing your head like a labourer, you will toil from sunrise to sunset for insulting wages." Lucian, On Salaried Posts in Great Houses (The Dependent Scholar), 23

It is surprising, on the other hand, the prodigious number of emphatic speeches that have been made in all ages against slavery among the ancient Greeks and Romans, but it is still more surprising to find that those peoples did not have even one-third of the slaves that Europeans and North Americans still have today. The present lords of the Earth are quite content to think that, had it not been for the Babel adventure, the whole world would speak English today. They are our great democrats, but they cannot tolerate the idea that there is anything beyond the control of their regulatory policies, much less that people invent and use things that make the earthly existence of their bureaucrats unnecessary. Freedom is only freedom when they want it to be, not when others want it to be, and what they have achieved with much effort and sacrifice, with much less effort and at great difficulty they always have to prohibit it. Everything that they have not done to authorize is a moral evil, a criminal action product of the freedom that man has allowed himself to abuse, and, therefore, it must be harmful to the rest of society, which must thank them by obeying and thinking as it has been taught to obey and think.

"Freedom recruits apostles; / But I follow none of them; the coarse game / I know all too well; all want / Freedom for their own gain. / Do you really want to free your neighbour? / Start by serving him... that is the way." Goethe, Epigrams, 50.

Be that as it may, the truth is that those of us who trust in the Bitcoin idea have heard a lot about the freedom of others, but we do not believe that there is anyone on the face of this Earth who has forged one like ours. We know that whatever price is paid for freedom is a good price, that the freest man is the one who has the greatest relative independence of his forces, that he is the one who lives best and desires best and feeds best, the one who is most detached from himself and renews himself. It is because we have learned in time to desire what we must that today we live as we wish, discovering every day that we have barely two seconds in life, and that it is not worth spending them crawling under the feet of any government. If we are to be condemned, we think, let it be for having sought freedom without rest; for having sought from life only what is just and beautiful, pursuing it to the best of our knowledge. What future life could we have achieved for ourselves, had we continued to live the present one for others? Is there a more dishonorable slavery than voluntary slavery? Can anything be attained without first untying the spirit and freeing it; without doing all that is necessary to unleash it?

"The spirit is free by nature, not a slave: it does well only what it does for itself and at pleasure." Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Supplements, I, 7.

This is a guest post by Anderson Benavides Prado. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Bitcoin Offers Freedom In A World Of Slavery By Design - Bitcoin Magazine

According to a leading digital asset management firm, global payments platform Cardano (ADA) is witnessing a surge in institutional investments.

In a new report from CoinShares, ADA nearly tied institutional Ethereum (ETH) inflows last week, bringing its total year-to-date amount to $108,000,000.

Ethereum inflows totaled $17.3 million last week, with Cardano right behind at $16.4 million. The week prior, Cardano inflows were $5 million and Ethereum inflows were $31.4 million.

The newly recorded Solana(SOL),Polkadot(DOT), andXRP inflows are $9.8 million, $5.2 million and $3.1 million, respectively.

With inflows coming into the market for a 13th consecutive week, CoinShares says that recent price rallies may have attracted more institutional capital into the space.

Digital asset investment products saw inflows totaling US$151m last week, the 13th consecutive week of inflows, bringing year-to-date inflows to a record US$9bn. Intra-week prices rises also saw total assets under management (AuM) reach record highs of nearly US$87bn, but closing the week at US$83bn.

Bitcoin (BTC) is below all-time highs in current value and weekly investment inflow, slipping in market dominance, according to the firm.

Bitcoin saw the majority of inflows totaling $98 million, pushing [assets under management] to a record $56 billion.

This is despite its dominance (relative performance) versus altcoins waning over the week.

Despite the overall digital asset investment product market welcoming inflows worth over $151 million last week, CoinShares notes that these numbers are subdued volumes compared to earlier this year.

Although flows have been positive recently, we have witnessed subdued volumes in 2H, averaging $750 million daily versus $960 million in 1H 2021.

Last week, CoinShares revealed that decentralized blockchain Tron (TRX) seemingly came out of nowhere to catch institutional interest. This week TRX saw net outflows, according to the firm.

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Institutional Investors Leap Into Cardano and Ethereum As Bitcoin Market Dominance Drops: CoinShares - The Daily Hodl